


Princess

by scribblemyname



Category: Inhumans (TV 2017)
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M, Family, Friends to Lovers, Plotting Betrayal, canon-divergent AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:11:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/pseuds/scribblemyname
Summary: In one possible world, his best friend walked into Black Bolt's hiding place and fell in love. In that world, Maximus never did figure out how to replace her kindness, her lack of condescension, before her own parents were taken away for their beliefs and she stopped sharing them.In another world, this world, there was still Crystal, the little blonde girl running around after her sister and suddenly at loose ends because Black Bolt was taking most of Medusa's time, and somewhere along the way, Maximus realized it.





	Princess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



When Maximus was still young, still reeling from his horrible terrigenesis, most people started treating him like he was nothing, covering it over by the thinnest respect for his family's rank. Everyone except Medusa and Crystal, whose parents were highly placed in Inhuman society, whose parents taught that people like him were still of equal value with people like his brother, who had so much power and to spare, he might as well have taken Maximus' too.

In one possible world, his best friend walked into Black Bolt's hiding place and fell in love. In that world, Maximus never did figure out how to replace her kindness, her lack of condescension, before her own parents were taken away for their beliefs and she stopped sharing them.

In another world, this world, there was still Crystal, the little blonde girl running around after her sister and suddenly at loose ends because Black Bolt was taking most of Medusa's time, and somewhere along the way, Maximus realized it.

* * *

"You miss her?"

Crystal pulled herself upright from the little ball she'd curled into against Lockjaw's side, stricken. Royalty, and her parents would kill her if they saw her sniffling like a commoner around royalty. She started to wipe her eyes, put on that 'of course not, I'm fine,' face, but was stopped cold in surprise at the suddenly frosty look of the prince.

"Don't–" His hand was out, commanding, voice breaking at the end of the word as though he were restraining himself. He breathed. "Don't do that." He stepped forward, hand lowering, bitter smile edging up his face. "I miss my brother. We used to be friends."

Crystal stared at him for a long moment. This was the prince who didn't have any power like the rest of the Inhumans and whose brother was locked away for his until Medusa started proving he could control himself enough to not need that. Crystal wondered, hesitant and worried for a moment, if she was supposed to demonstrate the same for Maximus, if that's what her parents would want. She settled for nodding and burying her head back in her knees. "Lockjaw still plays with me."

Maximus sat down beside her, and she looked up with wide eyes. The prince was sitting beside her. Not Medusa. Her.

He looked over, that strange, bright-eyed grin that didn't feel like a real smile flashing over his face again. "He can take you away from here."

"Do you want to leave?" she asked curiously.

He reached out a hand toward Lockjaw, as though he'd stroke the animal's back, then hesitated as his face contorted in thought, a bewildering series of expressions. He was so much more open than anyone else she'd ever seen, all those emotions on his face as he sorted through them, picked one, and shook his head with an almost serene resignation and finally petted the dog. "I'll play with you."

She stared at him, surprise doubtless written on every inch of her body, but then Lockjaw turned his head and whuffled and licked the prince's hand, drawing a small startled flinch, then the first real smile she'd seen on him.

"Hide and go seek!" she announced, scrambling to her feet.

Maximus had to catch up with her as she started taking off. "Hey, no using Lockjaw."

* * *

She didn't cheat. 

Well, only a little.

* * *

Medusa came back to her when their parents were taken away. They cried as they huddled together in one bed, or more like, Crystal cried and Medusa held her close around her shoulders and with great difficulty didn't. "I'll take care of us."

It was obvious how she was going to do it. Everyone already knew she intended to marry Black Bolt, and the elder prince was rather smitten with her.

Crystal didn't expect the way Medusa threw away everything their parents believed in to solidify their own position at the court, nor the way she advised Crystal to do the same. "Prince Maximus is not a valuable ally."

He was still a prince, wasn't he?

* * *

They'd always played in quiet corners, back hallways, places she was beginning to learn Maximus used to escape the burden of upper society's disdain for him, but also where he learned who was loyal to him anyway, who would acknowledge his royalty before his humanity, and where other retainers were more than happy for Crystal to keep him occupied. It was also a useful thing to do, except on the heels of an exile.

"Medusa thinks it makes me look like a sympathizer." She didn't mind saying it openly to Maximus. He could relate.

His lip curled in a disdainful sneer. "Because supporting your prince is against the social order."

It was, but it didn't mean they couldn't both hate it.

She looked at him for a long time, waiting for the machinations in his mind to smooth away off his face. "We could go anywhere."

Maximus looked surprised. She always could surprise him. He put one hand on the back of the beast and took one controlled breath. "No. I belong here and no one can take that from me."

Crystal knew everything about how Medusa made allies, or so she told herself. She'd never really spied on her sister or demanded details, but she was making a decision here, and she wanted to try this, despite knowing how badly it could go if Maximus took a dislike to it.

She sat up on her knees and leaned forward to awkwardly kiss him.

It was over in an instant, less than instant. She didn't know how to kiss, just pressed her mouth to his for the briefest of moments, then sat waiting, leaning on Lockjaw, waiting for his judgement.

He stared at her with such wide eyes, he almost looked like an innocent little boy instead of a half-grown man with more bitterness than was healthy to carry around in his heart. His eyes narrowed, calculating, then he reached out and grasped her shoulder to pull her closer. Her heart was loud enough to feel, blood rushing in her ears and heating her cheeks, and he kissed her, once, too quickly. They tried again, holding, adjusting, until they figured out how to make it last.

* * *

Nothing lasts. It's not like she didn't know he resented those who hated him. It's not like she didn't know he desired the political power that was his birthright, not a mere refuge from his fate had he been common. It's not like she didn't know his pleas for his brother to listen to him were going unheeded.

It's not like she didn't know he agreed with her parents and was not exiled because he was royalty.

"I could do it myself if Black Bolt would not," he confided in her once, "if only he would let me."

But no one had to let him, and there was worry knotting in her belly because Maximus did most of his business out of sight and he knew who was loyal to him.

"And you?" he asked, turning that sharp, overly bright-eyed gaze on her. "What do you think?"

"If you hurt my sister–"

He cut her off. "I would never hurt your sister. What kind of a monster do you think I am?" The genuine confusion on his face mollified her with sudden warmth.

"I can't lose anymore family," she whispered.

And she had thrown in her lot with Black Bolt.

Maximus studied her quietly. "Why would that be necessary?" He had hit upon what she was thinking, she knew it. He was too still and settled, the series of thoughts that would lead to open rebellion against the king must have already been completed, or else he'd simply figured out why she would open with such a threat.

She leaned forward, up on her knees again next to his sitting form to make them the same height, to make it possible to take his jaw in her hand in far too familiar a fashion and lean in close. "Don't. I'll talk to Medusa. I'll make her listen."

"And be exiled?" he hissed, eyes narrowing to angry pinpricks. He settled his hands on her shoulders, their shared body heat beginning to fill the small space between them. "I will not allow it."

Her grip tightened, his did in return. She didn't know what she was doing before she slammed her mouth against his and was gratified that they were no longer children, and still he wanted her, judging from the sudden, fierce reciprocation. He pulled her against him, she held him close, and she learned in one hour what Medusa knew already.

After, she winced, and his apologetic look was more adorable than it ought to be. She waved it off. "I'm fine."

"You're–"

"Sore and bruised and no longer a virgin," she agreed. "I think I hit you in the head."

He touched the place gingerly. "I've had worse."

She smiled then, then laughed a little, then sighed. Their problem hadn't changed. "Let me try."

He stared at her, then finally nodded. "All right. But if it fails, I will do anything in my power to save you."

"What if there are no consequences? What if I fail, but everyone just disagrees with me and ignores it?" It was a good question, Crystal thought.

Maximus acknowledged it. It was how they handled him. "I'll let you take them anywhere you want, where they'll be comfortable, cared for."

"Exiled." And there was her own bitterness.

"You could keep your sister," he added. But. "I doubt she'd prefer it."

Politics wasn't really Crystal's strong suit. She raised her fingers, considered the elemental control within them. It'd be easy to walk away from everything her parents had ever believed, to integrate and secure her own place in Attilan's court as it was, avoid the coming disaster it would become. Except in this world, Maximus had found her and made her friend before she thought of him as inferior.

"Fine. I handle my sister. If I can't convince her, you do what you will."

Maximus gripped her hand, pleased and eyes alight with joy. It almost made him beautiful. "And you'll be my Queen?"

"If it comes to that." And if it didn't... Well, she was sure she'd still be his princess.


End file.
